“Rains get out of there!” he screamed down the comms.
There was no response. He saw the ship vanish between two peaks in the distance and could only hope for the best.
“Good luck, Eddie,” he whispered.
His boosters kicked in, and he looked down. He was descending gently to the top of a rocky outcrop beside a vast structure. Dust bellowed out around his feet, and he could see the building before them was far from what he had expected.
From a distance it appeared to be hundreds of years old. Up close, it was of modern materials and only designed to appear the way it did to fool those from afar.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Silva, “Hell of a place to live.”
They looked up. The wall was almost twenty metres high. Only half of the marines had hit the ground, but Taylor was already leaping back into the air with his boosters. He landed down on the edge of the roof, and an automated gun rotated to take aim at him. He turned quickly and fired. The domed mount jammed, and he put a few more rounds through it to be certain.
“Charges!”
“Two of his squad slapped magnetic charges down onto the steel roof and took cover. The explosion rocked the rooftop below their feet. Taylor jumped to his feet to see a metre-wide hole burrowed in the roof.
“Damn, that’s serious armour!” Riley called out. Two more explosions ripped through the rooftop further along, and Mitch looked up just in time to see Parker jump in through the breach without any fear or hesitation. He wanted to be with her, but he knew the mission must come first before all else. He leapt forward and into the hole. As he hit the floor, a pulse struck his chest armour, and another zipped past his shoulder. He responded quickly by lifting his rifle and firing two shots at his attacker.
The dust was settling. They had jumped right into a guard station where an operator manned security feeds throughout the building. He looked down at the lifeless body of the man. It was the first human life he had ever taken. Taylor had never thought for a moment about striking a man, or even shooting those who deserved it, but shooting to kill one left him cold and feeling a little sick.
It was in this moment, he truly realised this was the sort of war he’d read so much about; the wars that had turned men crazy, and yet he’d always wished for. Riley landed beside him and was as fixated on the body as he was.
“Is this is what it’s come to?”
“I wish I could say otherwise, but we must do what we have to do.”
He stepped up to the console and looked at the screens that displayed cameras all around the facility.
“Goddamn place is huge,” said Riley.
“Yep.”
“Shit.”
Taylor looked at where Riley was pointing and spotted the unmistakeable outline of a Mech standing guard in one of the corridors. It was fully kitted in the armour they had seen during the war but carried a weapon resembling the Reitech equipment they used.
“They really are using Mechs?”
“Yeah, and that’s just the start of it. Come on, Riley.”
He rushed out the corridor, half expecting to find a line of Mechs, but it was quiet.
“Where are the guards?”
“We’re not at war, remember. I bet they only got a skeleton crew guarding this place. Let’s seize the opportunity while we still can.”
He started a countdown on his watch of thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to find a single man within a complex they had no plans for or idea of his location. He heard an explosion in the distance and knew it would be Silva breaching on his right flank. He carried on forwards as an alarm sounded. It rang out through the entire complex.
As they reached the end of the corridor, it opened out into a hangar bay with a number of small aircraft laid up within a fully enclosed and sealed space. It was hidden from the air.
"That's the Councillor's ship."
He instantly recognised the lavish vessel he had recently travelled aboard. It was a relief to see some evidence of Armand's presence. It wasn't that he didn't trust Becker, but the information he had to offer seemed vague and bizarre.
A few mechanics were working on a ship nearby and turned to look at him and the others. But it wasn't Jafar they stared at, obviously used to Mechs, but him. They made no attempt to draw weapons. They simply ran.
"Nice to see it's not just me they fear now," stated Jafar.
Taylor rushed to Armand's ship and up the ramp to get on board. There was not a soul in sight. Reaching the cockpit, he knew it was an opportunity to ensure it stayed grounded. He targeting the cockpit console and fired a half dozen shots through the controls until they were completely fried. He left the ship as quickly as he had entered it and was surprised to see all was still quiet.
"I don't like this. Where are the guards?"
As he said it, a shot flew past his head and ricocheted off the hull of the ship.
"Careful what you wish for, Sir!" Riley yelled, as they leapt for cover.
Taylor advanced across under the cover of the ships and other equipment until he reached the doorway where the shots were coming from. Without sticking his head out, he armed a grenade and tossed it around the corner. He heard screams of panic, human screams, as the explosion rang out. He lifted his rifle to take the bend.
One soldier lay dead and another incapacitated beside him. Riley reached Taylor's side and was as shocked as the first casualty they had inflicted.
"How do we know these are the bad guys?"
"We don't, but they're fighting for them. Right now, it's collateral damage that we'll just have to live with."
The wounded soldier tried to reach for a pistol, and Taylor quickly responded with a shot to his head just beneath the helmet rim, killing him instantly.
"I didn't sign up for this."
"It's precisely what you signed up for and what we trained for. When in the Corps, did we ever train for alien invasion? No, we trained to fight our own kind. It ain't pretty, but it’s what it is."
"What was the point of fighting if we were just gonna go back to fighting each other? We could have a world war on our hands if this continues."
"That's out of our hands now. We may be fighting humans, but this is as much a war started by the Krys as the last two. You don't have to like it. You just have to win."
"At what cost?"
"Enough questions. We get through this, and we might actually have a hand in what's going on and how to stop it."
He looked up and could see a junction up ahead.
"What I wouldn't give for a map of this place," he muttered.
They had no choice but to continue on, as he knew the other two squads would be doing. Gunfire echoed down through the junction they were approaching. Parker had found trouble, but there was no time to turn and help. He carried on at a steady pace with his rifle held at the ready.
The floor began to slope down and then turn as the gradient increased. They were going deeper now into the complex that must have been built into the rock of the mountain.
No way out now, you bastard, Armand.
They seemed to go about ten metres down until it levelled out. Taylor froze when a wall of Mechs met them. As they lifted their weapons to fire, he found an open doorway beside them and leapt in. The others were quick to follow, but the last was hit hard by two shots and stumbled as he came through. Jafar got a hold of him and hauled him inside. Taylor had only a brief second to look back and see the shots had hit his armour and the side of his leg.
"You have to stay on your feet!" he ordered the wounded marine.
Riley took a quick look at the wound. "It's gone right through. You'll be fine."
They were in some kind of scientific workshop or laboratory.